In federal court last week, a Cody man sought to explain why he’d gathered an extensive collection of firearms, saying each gun had a specific purpose and that he planned to pass them to his children.

But U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl noted that, at the time police seized the more than two dozen guns from Randall Bailey’s home, the 66-year-old had been barred from possessing any firearms under a court order protecting Bailey’s ex-wife. Skavdahl also observed that authorities discovered an alleged automatic pistol, two unregistered suppressors and two pipe bombs.

“I think,” the judge mused, “Mr. Bailey loved his guns more than he loved the law.”

The judge imposed a 51-month prison sentence for two felony crimes: possession of a firearm by a person subject to a court order and possession of an unregistered firearm. Two similar counts were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

The underlying protection order

Multiple people submitted letters of support for Bailey, and Skavdahl said he believed the defendant is an “extremely intelligent man, loved and respected.”

“… but there is a component of vindictiveness and vengeance that is making you make these choices,” Skavdahl said.

The protection order that Bailey violated with his cache of weapons had been issued by Park County Circuit Court Judge Joey Darrah in April 2024, after the judge found Bailey had harassed his ex-wife.

Beyond barring Bailey from possessing firearms and ammunition, Darrah had ordered the man to stay at least 150 feet away from his ex’s Cody home. However, in November 2024, Bailey was reportedly caught on a security camera pulling up to his ex’s house and rummaging through her vehicle.

When Cody police arrested Bailey the following day, they found an ID badge belonging to his ex in his vehicle, along with a stun gun in his jacket and a loaded revolver in the trunk.

It was while following up on that incident that police searched Bailey’s rural Cody home and found the stash of firearms and illegal weapons.

Park County prosecutors have charged Bailey with felony counts of stalking and burglary in connection with the alleged vehicle break-in, plus a misdemeanor count of interference with a peace officer for allegedly resisting arrest.

Bailey will need to deal with those charges before he enters the federal system.

‘I am a victim’

While Bailey admitted to the federal firearms charges, he has vehemently denied that he ever harassed his ex-wife. Though Darrah has found that Bailey surreptitiously planted a tracking device on his ex’s vehicle in 2023, may have later put a nail beneath her tire and sent complaints to a licensing board and alma mater to harass her, Bailey has said those allegations are not true.

In November, he personally filed a civil lawsuit accusing his ex, his ex’s divorce attorney, Judge Darrah, various law enforcement officers and prosecutors plus a number of private citizens of violating his civil rights with false information, flawed investigations, bias, exaggerations, and substandard care in jail. He demanded over $32 million in damages, including $75 an hour for the time he’d spent in jail. 

However, U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson quickly dismissed all but one of Bailey’s claims and mused that the sole remaining complaint — accusing a nurse at the Platte County Detention Center of providing poor care — “seems unlikely to rise to the level of a constitutional violation.”

At Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, Bailey again described himself as the aggrieved party in his divorce and told the court that, “I am a victim.”

His defense attorney, Sam Krone, argued for a lighter sentence, noting his client had effectively no prior criminal history.

“I don’t believe, based on who Mr. Bailey is, it would justify a lengthy sentence,” Krone argued.

However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paige Hammer strongly opposed a downward variance from the sentencing guidelines, saying Bailey’s conduct was “not just a mere lapse of judgment.”

“Mr. Bailey is not a victim of the system,” Hammer told the court, saying the prison sentence represented “accountability for his own conduct.”

She later noted that, “a machine gun is not something the average citizen has, a pipe bomb is not something the average citizen has, a silencer is not something the average person has.”

Hammer also said the stalking allegations were very concerning.

Barred from contacting his ex

Before pronouncing his sentence, Skavdahl noted the strong emotions tied to spouses and children; he referenced a recent case in Ohio, in which a surgeon is alleged to have murdered his ex-wife and her new husband more than eight years after their divorce.

“The bottom line is … the restrictions [in a protection order] are not without reason,” Skavdahl said.

After Bailey completes his roughly four-year, three-month prison sentence, he’ll need to serve three years of federal probation.

Although Bailey objected, arguing the federal charges were unrelated to his ex-wife, the judge barred him from having any contact with his ex during his time on supervised release. Bailey will also be required “to disclose his history of violating protection orders and stalking … to any romantic partner,” among other conditions.

Skavdahl recommended that Bailey serve his prison time at either a low-security facility in Englewood, Colorado, or a minimum security prison in Yankton, South Dakota. However, Bailey was returned to the Cody jail on Friday to face his pending Park County charges.

Park County prosecutors have agreed that any sentence Bailey receives on the state charges can be served at the same time as his federal sentence. However, Bailey has pleaded not guilty to those allegations and is presumed to be innocent.

The case is set to go to trial in Park County District Court on March 16.